Clark Reviews ‘Jupiter Ascending’

Clark Reviews ‘Jupiter Ascending’
Clark Douglas — 365 Movie Guy

The term “space opera” gets thrown around every time a big-budget fantasy set in space rolls into theatres, but Jupiter Ascending actually earns the title: whatever you may think of it, there’s no denying that it’s pretty damn operatic. There’s a pure-hearted earnestness here which might have felt run-of-the-mill thirty years ago but feels fairly bracing in 2015. It’s a movie filled with flying dinosaur soldiers, shape-shifting aliens, genetic splicing, bonkers performances, grandiose concepts, political statements, royalphile bees, anti-gravity roller blades, Brazil references and a metric…

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Sony and Marvel Reach ‘Spider-Man’ Deal

Sony and Marvel Reach ‘Spider-Man’ Deal
Marvel.com

Marvel’s Kevin Feige to Produce Next Installment of the Spider-Man Franchise with Amy Pascal

Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced today that Sony is bringing Marvel into the amazing world of Spider-Man. 

Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio…

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Lionsgate Wants to Make ‘Hunger Games’ Sequels and Prequels

Lionsgate Wants to Make ‘Hunger Games’ Sequels and Prequels
Kevin Jagernauth — The Playlist

Feltheimer says the studio is “actively looking at some development and thinking about prequel and sequel possibilities” because, obviously. Granted, the world of Panem is potentially interesting to explore, but before they rush on anything to make a fast buck, let’s hope they really consider the possibilities and don’t just rush out “The Hunger Games: The Chronicles Of Gale.” How about the story of Haymitch before he became lovingly jaded? I’d watch a whole movie of Beetee and Wiress being super dorks, but maybe it’s a good think I’m not in charge of a studio, because that would make zero…

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Vin Diesel Doesn’t Have Friends, He Has Family — New Trailer for ‘Furious 7’

Vin Diesel Doesn’t Have Friends, He Has Family — New Trailer for ‘Furious 7’

The concept of these films has always been silly — but they surely do have broad appeal. And people that I like and respect a lot like the films well enough, even if they don’t think they are pure gold. We’re going to get to see more antics with cars on April 3rd and we even get to see Vin Diesel drive a car OUT OF A SKYSCRAPER. They may be stretching believability a little here.

‘Art of the Scene’ Essay Explores the ‘Alien’ Chestburster Scene

‘Art of the Scene’ Essay Explores the ‘Alien’ Chestburster Scene

Do not watch this if you are opposed to gruesome horror scene explorations. In some ways this is more yucky than actually seeing it in the film — though the shock factor is toned way down because you know it’s coming and the music and story is not affecting you.

I love seeing how some of this classic stuff came to live and this is a great exploration of what all went into this. And I’m not just talking from a technical point of view here, they also explore some of the dominos that had to line up to even get to this point. Great stuff.

Netflix’s First ‘Daredevil’ Trailer

Netflix’s First ‘Daredevil’ Trailer

“I’m just trying to make my city a better place.” Sounds an awful lot like Arrow if you ask me. I know litterally nothing about the comic book series this Netflix original TV show will be based on (as is usually the case with comic book properties), but this is Marvel we’re talking about so hopefully it will be good.

The entire series will be available to binge watch on April 10 for Netflix subscribers.

‘Heroes Reborn’ Super Bowl Spot

‘Heroes Reborn’ Super Bowl Spot

I haven’t posted every single Super Bowl trailer because some of them did absolutely nothing at all for me (such as the Minions trailer, or the Pixar Inside Out trailer). But while this trailer doesn’t really do a lot for me, it actually worked better than the two parenthetical I mentioned. I loved the original run of Heroes all the way through. There were times of frustration, yes (what TV show doesn’t have those?), but it was a pretty great show over all. And while I think this reboot or restart — or whatever it is — is likely to fail and be awful, I can’t help but be a little bit excited…

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J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Casual Vacancy’ Gets a BBC Miniseries with First Trailer

J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Casual Vacancy’ Gets a BBC Miniseries with First Trailer

Forgive me J.K. Rowling fans, I have let you down. Though the Harry Potter series may just be my favorite fantasy series, I know nothing at all about J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. It’s a shame, I suppose, because — at least from what I know of her Harry Potter series, I consider Rowling to be one of the best modern writers of our time. I have no doubt that The Casual Vacancy is good, but I know nothing about it.

Now maybe I’ll at least learn about it through this BBC series — though if it’s anything like the relationship between the Harry Potter books and films, the live action drama…

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The Quadrant System — Every Frame a Painting

The Quadrant System — Every Frame a Painting

This will be the second time I’ve posted an ‘Every Frame a Painting’ episode. I really need to subscribe to that or something. Anyway, I have not, sadly, seen Drive, but now I really, really want to. It came out just before I really started paying attention to film and wanting to write and podcast about it. So I need to correct this lapse in my education.

But, as regards this video, this really shows the craft of framing and cinematography. When I was an indy filmmaker full time, I could tell when a shot was well composed, and I’ve composed a few shots fairly well myself, but I was never…

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